in parentheses

The Sailor’s Lover

She climbed the humid, water-beaten coastline
As she did every Thursday
When the fishermen came in to trade the week’s catch to the morning vendor.

Her eyes fixated on the pale clouds,
She signs and whispers a prayer,
“Fifty-two days, let this be the one, my Lord.”

Below, a docking ship offloads her bronzen sailor,
Who kisses the waterspat dock
While shaking his sea-legs.

She smiled for the first time in two months,
And let out an exuberant call to her wandered lover.

He motioned toward the coast,
Where from below,
A young woman with-child ran to meet him.

A solid, crystalline tear falls
Onto the moist rock.